rapturerebornmmorpgfandomcom-20200216-history
Part 85
Sitemap --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- - More interesting items/ideas for a Bioshock Rapture MMORPG --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- --- - Part 85 --- --- --- --- --- A Series of Books Written/Published in Rapture ... XYZ for Ignoramuses and Dimwits (equivalance of our 'Dummies' books) * "Genetic Manipulation for Morons" - by Yi Suchong * "Care and Feeding of Your SeaSlug" - Little Eleanor Lamb (child's book) * "Submersible Piloting, Its Really Easy" - Doc Mariner * "The Art of Computer Programming" - Reed Wahl and Charles M. Porter * "Plaster Crafts, How I Do It", and "Volume 2 - Fun With Plaster" - Sander Cohen * "Trees" - Prof. J. Langford * "My Struggle" - F. Fontaine * "Why I Am An Atheist" - Andre Rianofski * "Golden Spike, How I Built My Railroad" - Prentis Mill * "Trading Futures" - M. Epstein * "ADAM Side-effects and Their Treatments" - B. Tenenbaum * "Let The Buyer Beware, My Life" - Augustus Sinclair * "There and Back Again, The Story of Johnny Topside" - Roy Hinkley * "101 Things to Do with an Empty EVE Syringe" - LilCrafter Magazine * "This Is My City" - Anthology * "About Face" - J.S. Steinman MD * "To Kill A MockFish - 101 Recipes Using Real Fish" - Fontaine Fisheries Cooking Club * "Parasites and The Ant People" - Andrew Ryan * "FDR And Other Socialist Charlatans" - Andrew Ryan * "The Great Chain, How To Make It Strong. An Introduction To Rapture" - Andrew Ryan * "Kelp Is Your Friend" - Rapture Kelp Growers Association * "The Coming Age of Artificial Intelligence" - Jack McClendon * "Rapture Is In My Soul" - Joseph Blow * "Retraining For Your Future in Rapture" - Anton Kinkaide * "How Tesla Inspired Me" - Andrew Ryan --- --- --- Mod'ing of Team AI - MORE BRAINZ!!! : ''' (Player developers), combined better code logic to create better NPC 'Brains'. The NPC AI for this game would be well beyond what existing games would have (both for opponents AND for Side-kick NPCs). It needs to be much more versatile, with many more potential strategies (and to interact with this games world (many many more interactive objects and additional actions/consequences). Its modular nature (The whole MMORPG actually) allows substituting incremental improvements and variation for independant skills and situations (the system would evolve (with time) as Players With Aptitude (PWA) add their improvements, and others improve those). Current Game Companies are fossilized/stuck having to limit what they do AI-wise as the expense becomes too ruinous/impractical (they've also been in a trap (their excuse) of assuming THAT is how it works in their industry, and if Players pay for games as lousy as they are, WHY should any Company spend alot more money/take risk on any real improvement.) There are countless incidental interactions between NPCs, or NPCs and Player which do not require that much complex 'logic' to implement, but would greatly improve the sense that the Game World isn't filled only with lifeless/soulless "Mannequins on Tracks". (Alot of NPC activity is just to make the world look alive, rather than a bunch of mannekins standing around(forever) or running on a track ad nauseum doing exactly the same thing.) Of course having them LOOK purposful and act correctly if you interact with them adds even more to the illusion. --- --- --- '''Vita Chamber Justification (so that its not Quantum Bullshit just to have a SAVE mechanism) : The writers were a little loose on the justification for this game mechanism (it goes a bit further Star-Trekky than most of the genre's 50s era Sci-Fi plus ADAM/gene-tech stuff in believability). If they tried, they might have come up with something more reasonable. But as it is (keeping it), we can be challenged and a little creative in correcting it to have a plausible existance : "restoring vigor and spirit with the touch of a button." It was originally a Ryan product that was used for something less than 'Bringing people (The player/Ryan) back to life' - a possible "pay to be invigorated" (or healed/resuscitated) vending machine (no coin slot visible - so must be some membership thing), being expanded in its function/capabilities 'experimentally'. That would justify why we see the machines already being all over Rapture (and in some strange/odd places - intended for its general use by citizens, and not just Ryan). The BaS storyline is off the rails - Suchong instantly inventing them and automatically having them only work for Ryan - We will ignore that illogic entirely. Supposedly they were 'locked down' to prevent assisting (via the original system's healing function) Ryan's enemies in the Civil War, and in were in the middle of being changed over to assist his forces (enemy all die, his loyal minions come back to life, or at least healed...), when the work was disrupted. Perhaps their function was also being changed to administer part of the 'pheromone control' scheme at some point, or something equivalent (Ryan looking forward to trying to get his citizens OFF their ADAM addictions). Why only Ryan (his 'genetic frequencies') and not just shut them all down ? - well if the thing actually worked, then why not gamble for 'ressurection' for himself (he had paid for them after all). And the 'lock' apparently was the same developed mechanism that supposedly worked already (assumed used on Bathyspheres), and it blocked use by his enemies (possibly the Civil War disruption prevented implementing some modified lock for his minions to use them - maybe still doing healing at least). Being useable by Delta (NOT Ryans genetic 'frequencies...) would mean some general change happened across the whole VC system. This might have been made by Tenebaum/The Thinker/Lil Sisters hands to help Eleanor at whatever central control the Vita-Chamber system had. Again, some narrow genetic lock encoded (Deltas DNA Eleanor found) as in the limited mechanism from Ryan's time OR the locks were ALL diabled but noone else knew that had happened (though why so many (all) would be still working when so much else was in ruins is inconsistant). We don't ever see a Splicer use them (too bad), so it is not likely they were 'hacked' before that in any general way. BaS Bullshit - REJECT IT -- Suchong there shown creating them and as RYAN ONLY just before the Civil War -- makes little sense as they are seen all over by BS1 in places Ryan would never go. Too much disruption/expense to produce/deploy them (besides the fact Suchong in previous games called the whole Resurrection idea "Bullshit", when Sinclair and Alexander "tried to explain it" to him). For the MMORPG, you will find many wrecked ones (some with valuable salvage parts). The technology to resuscitate/heal (The Resurrection thing may have only been a Sales Slogan) was still useful and would continue to be to New Rapture (particularly for the Citizens being ex-Splicers who can get severely injured in the new game mechanics, and a justification for your typical No-Death MMORPG requirement). --- --- --- Automatic Gentleman -- McClendon's Ideas (Robots) : http://rapturerebornmmorpg.wikia.com/wiki/File:AutomaticGentBW.jpg Servant-O-Matic ? Product to be made by McClendon Robotics. Can't have them able to climb walls, just a bit too weird and unsavory... No mini-zeppelins, and rotating propellers (like on Security Flybots) are too dangerous for domestic use. So some kind of walking mechanism (able to handle stairs/step which seem a common feature of Raptures 'terrain'). Bad Science would be a mutated monkey brain controlling the thing - now degenerated from its original 'Gentleman' training ... (with automatic-drive -- everyone knows monkeys can't drive a stick-shift...) Bio-Electronic brain would be much easier to maintain. Too expensive/complex/unneeded to ADAM/EVE power such a thing, but it could be powered by a big clear flask of kerosene or even moonshine (alcohol is easier to come by in Rapture via fermentation) with a small internal combustion engine (even a one-banger with a flywheel). It can have its engine putt-putting quietly when it is waiting in ambush/moving slowly, then making a loud racket when it throttles up to attack you. You hit the fuel tank you get a mini fireball (or like the kerosene fires you see in movies when a kerosene lamp breaks - big patch of fire -- except bigger -- and the robot is still coming towards you aflame for a short while before it conks out). Of course malfunctioning (lack of maintenance) and going rogue and becomming a menace will be fully proper. Bizarre-ness would be : It still be uttering some of its 'Automatic Gentleman' voice snippets -- "Would Madam like me to fetch the mail", etc.... while it is attacking you : * "Will Sir be going to his club?" (produces a club and starts swinging) * "A light, Sir?" (Flaming Molotov cocktail is tossed, or big flame shoots out of the hand it once lit cigarettes with) * "Will Madam be retiring soon?" (menaces with a tire iron) * "Allow me to help you down, Sir" (makes a grab to fling you to the ground to stomp you..) * "A fine day for hunting pheasants, Sir" (aims shotgun) * "Taking out the Trash now, Sir" (dragging your unconscious corpse away). * "Will one be desiring a doctor?" (looking down on a corpse it is still stabbing) - Cobbled together robot from Robotic Little Sister Parts - 8 legged mostrosity - sounds like a 'One-of' for some Techie-Splicer Boss's pet (that one WITH does the crawling on walls and such). --- --- --- Automatic Gentleman Idea for a Rapture Mission Scenario : The warehouse scene would be a good place to have that really ancient game scenario where you have to maneuver out of reach of 'the robots' and evade and make your escape -- where they move slowly and are reaching out to try to grab you with their metalic hands and you have to dodge and weave to get past all of them. Sure you could slam a few with your rifle butt, but meanwhile dozens are inching closer towards you ... Not sure why there would be a whole warehouse full of defectives (maybe should be more like a scrap heap of 'returns', with many half dismantled -- crawling at you missing legs etc... ) The scenario writer can always come up with a reason to make you go thru an area (being chased and went in the only doorway that was unlocked, etc...) The reason why there are so many of the robots (when not that many people in Rapture might have been rich enough to buy them) - prices would go down as the could be made cheaper if mass-produced. Possibly there was a contract for 'window washers' ... Why they are 'malfunctioning' -- the monkey brains/whatever that run the things have either gone senile or a bit rotten (its sciencey themed so they dont have to justify much beyond it got infected with a virus or something ...) Anyway, a whole maze of crates, in the near dark. Have a few variations of the 'jump scare' - a big crate falls over, some arms reaching out, a strange unearthly scream (and the Player finds that HE was screaming !!) after an automoton head rolls at their feet, the open door across the warehouse (with the light shining from it) suddenly shuts leaving you in total darkness... Of course you have another box fall in the dark, but nothing else happens. The Robotic meanies rise up from being submerged in puddles, etc... Plenty of ideas to work with for that scene, including a possible 'Scoobie Do' twist, that it is some people who have taken refuge there, and they try to stay safe by scaring people/Splicers out of the place (or somesuch). - Could have a nice little scene in some part of the city with the 'crazy' Automatic Gentleman acting the servant to a bunch of corpses (cliche). It is not clear if the robot killed them way back or just found some convienent corpse. - You need something creepy (to kill) to take the place of those poor deformed mentally-ill Splicers, and to have come at you out of the dark. Robots are 'politically correct' to slaughter without qualms... (and their intelligence doesnt have to be as clever as a Splicers would). Proper sound effects would probably be the real 'creep out' aspect, as they should make some distinct mechanical sounds, which you can hear from a distance, as they creep towards you in the dark or as they are waiting around the next corner, or are behind the door you need to go thru. I remember in Return to Castle Wolfenstein the half robotic Nazi monstrocities - which were hard to kill, were dangerous (reason to fear them meleeing you) which you heard distinctly from a ways off, but really didn't know where they were (often right around next corner...), or when they would get to you. Thinking about effects (lighting), when they used arc-lamps more than a little (while lightbulbs got scarce) and the stark too-bright light they produced would make for nice exaggerated visual effects (GPU shader scripting fun - more Player Creations) that would contrast with both the dark and the well-lit views. Menacing shadows, etc... - For the MMORPG, these robots would be an item useable as a source of parts for other objects (ie- auto-bar-tender at a bar in the New Rapture City Center). Behavior scripting to make it interactive would make it a more 'advanced' object to create. Players would most often find them in pieces (salvage opportunity). - Such an idea would have worked in Columbia (more than those bizarre hood ornament alarm boys: the 'boys of silence'), but that's one of those (so many) could/woulda/shoulda opportunities now lost (except in the MMORPG where all things are possible)... --- --- --- Those Handy Team NPCs : ''' Inventory Pipeline - let your NPCs handle all those mundane loot items or manufactured goods which YOU spend your time making business/adventuring decisions for. You define what/how types of things/items/objects are handled, and your NPC 'Lackeys' do all the repetative grunt work - EVEN when you aren't there (offline)!!! (This MMORPG isn't about 'grinding' like so many others - we dont want tedious 'filler' ...). More than a little programming logic smarts to be built into their behaviors to do things in a intelligent way (and to allow sufficient options to have them do what YOU want done, and an interface to make setting such things straight-forward for most Players). Project Status Boards (in-game interface) would make visible the process and priorities and results (would be accessible in the 'offline' tablet/smartphone access to the MMORPG. Various 'instruct by example' game mechanisms, where what you do (yourself) initially can be done by them later, as well as logical behaviors for them obtaining things THEY need to fulfill their orders/functions, without YOU having to micromanage them (big ticket 'special' items would be on a "Check if OK" list given to you for the more costly decisions). Inventory Trash management - directives of what to keep/stockpile vs dispose of in 'the usual way' (dump it in the nearest vacant lot or down the sewer, or sell it off...). Parts/Materials that are useful for existing/planned/future projects would be saved, stockpiles for common contingencies, etc... You find all kinds of weird rubbish in your explorations, and as you develop skill, your NPCs will know better what is valuable/useful or not. --- --- --- '''Blue Morpho Butterfly : An apt (probably unintended by the writers) symbol for 'The Family', as the blue color is actually an iridescent illusion, and its wing is actually dark colored. Many of the places which we see them they would not look that (bright blue) way because the blue color is dependant on reflected light, and so much of Rapture is now dark. The back of their wings are dark colored, so anytime you see them from that angle they would NOT appear blue. Just like The Family, and Sophia Lamb, the light face hides its dark nature. --- --- --- 3D Goggle Interfaces : Limitations - can't see/work a keyboard anymore? (which do have LOTS of nice buttons needed for activating a whole lot of different commands, macros etc..) Mouse still works, so preconfigured clickable onscreen 'button' widgets could work, pointed and clicked by a mouse. Possible interface using speech recognition (prefereable single words for action + target to be easily trainable - limited vocabulary), hand gestures (few interfaces as yet for this), controller movement wii stuff tilty stuff (limited use). We still may yet hear that the 3D head-worn stuff still causes too many headaches (and neck strain??) for long periods of use. --- --- --- Term "Art Deco" From Exposition Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes, a 1925 exposition in Paris, France. --- --- --- A 'Thing' About Retro Technology Which I Find Interesting : That at any point in Human history there were CLEVER people creating clever solutions to get things done, to produce products (and the methods to produce those products). People are NO SMARTER now than back then, Neither are they more Clever. Possibly today, because of mass communication, one can be exposed to more ideas (perhaps Too many), but thats not new either. Go investigate how Many people in the Middle Ages (the ones who could read & write) sent letters about new things and ideas across (what was for them) great distances. OK, so what does this mean for the MMORPG ?? Rapture kept up on developments of the Surface World (Tech Journals as 'Contraband' ??). Even though a small community, the 'garage' inventors still had the ego to 'Show Off', which often led (as always) to someone else taking an idea and doing better with it... Of course these things might not be anything people actually wanted, but they would still show them off allowing us to see them (allowing strange amusing Assets created by Players which might be more joke than real could be shown). Contact with the Surface post-1952 would have (through official channels) included technology data, as well as materials and tools that Rapture just couldn't be "Self-Sufficient" enough to produce itself. Stockpiles of such things would have been being built, but that would take years. Now this doesn't mean that you (someone in Rapture) can instantly create Wonder Products, like they fantasticly/magicly showed in Infinite: BS. You dont just SEE something and instantly can make it ( not even after years of work, if the required technologies/materials/skills/tools simply dont exist for you). So for Rapture type stuff, it won't be StarTrekky looking things, but just pushing advancements on things that already existed at the end of WW2, and largely keeping the style of things at that time. --- --- --- Yet Another Role Play Scenario Opportunity - Play as Big Sister ... : Big Sister tasks - Enforcer to protect Little Sisters. To 'punish' Family members who dont obey. Teenage Angst : What do Big Sister do in their 'down time' ??? Backstory of how they came to be ... Typical life of a Big Sister - babysitting the little brats to get enough pay to go out and get drunk/high ... "Kidnap the Child" Mission on the Surface <--- Actually Only Likely With the General Gaming Prohibition on Harming Children - the usual impervious/invulnerable LS. Stab the Parent, Grab the Child (Maybe can be lamed-out (like the Harvest "Green Cloud") when obtaining the 'child' is clear, the scenario 'fades out' with a cutscene of the Big Sister hauling away a sack... * Lurkings, sneaking about searching for targets * That damned sand gets stuck in the metal braces * Why has the sack stopped moving ? * Heck, look at all this neat stuff... might as well grab some of that too ... * Conditioned to think that making the children into Little Ghouls sucking green bloody stuff from corpses is WAY better than staying with their Stoopid Parents ... (seriously couldn't Sofia Lamb have just raided one big orphanage somewhere to get all the Little Sister fodder she would need for her entire insane plan ???) --- --- --- Crossover Ideas : * Turn a "Big Sister stealing 7 year old girls" into a Scooby Doo story plot (Old man Higgins covering up his smuggling operation... The Ghostly Pirate Ship projection... Mummies!!! ) * TacoShock Hot Sauce powered powers : Explosive-Flo, Run-4-The-BorderToilet, Burning-Mouth, Stomach Lurcher, Chihuahua Swarm, Siesta Time ... * My Little Seaslug Plushie Toys (in the happy meal) * Sluggy Freelance - but what does it have to do with slugs ? Bun-bun comes to Rapture. * Max Schmeling is the greeter at Pharoah's Fortune Casino *Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode "Rapture of the Deep" (eventuall disclosed as a dream sequence). --- --- --- Garum - Romes Ketchup : Is Fermented fish paste - the secret component isnt 'love', it is actually natural MSG... Seems a natural for Rapture. --- --- An Amusing Thought for Minervas Den : ''' At the very end (Bathysphere Scene) you find out that You ARENT Porter, but actually Wahl - who was the one actually framed and sent to Persephone. Porter had cut off Minervas Den from Rapture and thus could control everything in it, and had fabricated all the Audio Diaries, and led you on your little Perp Walk thru the place for Porter's amusement. The Thinker you see was always a hoax as far as the 'Artificial Intelligence' went, even if its computing power still was revolutionary. Porter plans to take the technology to The Surface and become very rich and famous, but needed to get Wahl back to pry a few of the remaining programming aspects of the technology which neither He or McClendon had known (hidden in Wahls office??). Mimicking an identity with voice is not that hard for a computer, IF its being told exactly what to say (Wahl wasn't the only one framed using that method). In the final Bathysphere Scene, it is not Tenenbaum sitting in the Bathysphere, but Porter, with a ion laser gun, who then kills you after you have unwittingly done everything he needed. Seriously, if you could have that Infinite BS DLC lame-assed scene where the Luteces are telling Daisy Fitzroy that she HAS TO allow Elizabeth to kill her to save the future, and that Daisy now really is just going to pretend to murder Fink's son... (dim absurd RETCONing to make that bloodsoaked rebel all warm and fuzzy and 'just misunderstood' and all that claptrap.... it puts the BS in Infinite:BS...), then this whole new Double Twist for Minervas Den is Golden Ambrosia. Lets have Daisy go along with the Luteces (play them while they are trying to "play her") and when the time comes she quickly turns around and shoots Elizabeth through the head and becomes the new Queen of Columbia (for a short while anyway, til the whole floaty quantum stuff breaks down and everyone still alive takes a terrifying elevator drop ride to their deaths on the very hard ground.) That DAisy-Lutece scene Qualifies for the Top Ten Most Absrud Game Scenes The Luteces keep meddling for their own entertainment, so there is nothing new there. --- --- --- '''So Ryan Ran Everything ?? : We never hear anything about a City Charter for Rapture, which is one of the common mechanisms that defines and restricts a City Council's or other city official's powers. (with all the commercial emphasis, it might be referred to as "The Rapture Contract" which all the Citizens had to sign before coming to Rapture). Ryan couldn't do everything himself, so he had to have various people, experts and managers and under them workers/officials of all kinds. Don't be fooled by talk of 'The Thinker' or the wonders of Rapture, so many things were manually controlled/maintained (even the automatic systems have to be kept in repair). With Atlas and his minions actively destroying infrastructure, even more effort would be needed to keep things running. So this is another reason that Ryan wouldn't intentionally turn the remaining citizens into Splicers (the alleged "Order to Report" likely had NOTHING to do with doing that) as he doesn't need more crazies, and needs his staff and everyone else sane, to maintain and rebuild his city. How quickly would that whole system fall apart if huge numbers of Ryan's people abandoned him ? Many must not have and even continued after he was allegedly gone. - But then (according to the game writers) everything seems to have got done by hopes and dreams and postit notes for Rapture's inner workings (thats almost as big a Fantasy as a floating city). It is all just part of the game plot setup to make sure the place fails miserably on cue. With a system like that, it is a wonder Rapture lasted for 15 years, or even got built in the first place. But then bang-bang guns, blasting things with pretty Plasmids, mutant/zombie opponents to mass-slaughter, led-by-the-nose-ring thru plot 'twists', pseudo 'moral choices' ..... the game profits don't require a lesson in civics or logic or realism. So the reality (for a system that worked for well over a decade) to be better explained in the MMORPG would be : that there would have been a City Charter, just as there would be courts and basic laws and statutes and ordinances for adherence to contracts, property rights, basic civil behavior, safety, etc.. (seriously how can you run a business bigger than a hotdog stand without commercial contracts ?) --- --- --- Retro'ing Columbia Properly : In Columbia, to be properly a mixture of technologies (old and futuristic), there should have been telegraphs or speaking tubes everywhere (including public booths) serving in the place of Telephones (or have the wires strung everywhere like they were during that period). Even electric power/lights were considered dangerous and unnatural - that the electricity might leak out of the fixture/sockets and poison you while you slept. Robotry and security mechanisms (alarms and whatnot) would have telegraph-like controls. This all to act as a better backdrop for the magical technology stuff produced from the 'Tears' and alleged genius of the Luteces. Normal people back in the day were suspicious enough of all the new things, and even moreso this 'magic' stuff (reading about it in fiction is one thing but having your life depend on it is another (hmm, an explanation of the 'type' of people who would LIVE in a floating city to begin with...) --- --- --- Rapturooski - Engineering, Da ! - Fantasy, Nyet !!! : Glass fiber and/or Stainless Steel Fiber added to concrete to increase Tensile Strength (ontop of alot of water-corrosion-sealed Rebar reinforcement). This additive mostly keeps stress cracks from forming while the concrete is setting, which helps make it set with maximal strength. Yes, Rapture WAS after all mostly concrete. --- --- Gianormous Statues in Infinite:BS : Hard to know where to start with these figments of some deluded fantasy vision. They are impressive, but besides ones carved from the side of mountains where have you seen any others so rediculously huge ? So are they inflatable (like Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Floats) ? Thin sheet metal ? Like the Statue of Liberty, which is still only 151 feet tall and has a steel girder interior support frame (which sits on a stone base solidly on the ground). I doubt Fink would/could have developed carbon fiber nanotubes for these things to support themselves, let alone resist the winds that would be hitting them. Those statue's Size multiplies the leverage and forces involved. (And NO, Fink is a technological Caveman and could hardly get steel wire for the non-existing guywires of these oversized monstrocities, let alone the skills/tools/knowhow/materials for anything more advanced). Maybe the Lutece Particles can (for sake of argument) hold these things up, but they still have to be fastened somehow to things, and the support forces have to be transmitted somehow. Ooooh, theres an idea : Lutece Alloy - with numerous magic particles mixed into steel/wood/plaster/asphalt to distribute their floaty forces throughout everything that makes up the city. Powering it ??? We need NO STINKIN "powerin it". It works simply "cuz". Maybe it could be Lutece Float Paint - they once put Lead in paint so why not Lutecanium (Lutecite? Lutecene? Lutecone? ...) Just watch out for those kids who used to eat paint chips... And the expense. I doubt the US Government would/could have paid for those rediculus things (there actually was a Depression on in 1893, BTW). SO Comstock did it later? And the money/materials/labor came from where ? Oh that's right, we never get mentioned where all the stuff comes from to run floatyland Columbia (comes up one rocket trip at a time I suppose). But lets stick to the absurdity at hand without starting in on so many more which there are. Wonderous views for the game. Too bad they try to justify it all with lame pseudo-science excuses which better fiction has learned to avoid. "Camelot !!!" ... "Its only a model" ... "Shhhh" Everyone else gets on with much smaller nice statues - just have them be closer and they look JUST AS LARGE!!! ??? Columbia's air is infused with a chemical that causes telescopic-vision distortion and all those wondrous vistas/huge buildings/statues are really no bigger than what you find in the average Miniature Golfcourse???? Yep, That's the Ticket. --- --- --- --- --- . . .